


The Stark's South

by GPMass



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (not matter what GGRM says), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Brandon the Builder, BAMF House Stark, Gen, House Stark, House Stark in the Reach, I am incapable of tagging something, Magic has a Bigger Role, North is Reach, Northern Houses - Freeform, Other, Spanning a large amount of time, Stark-centric (ASoIaF), The Seven Kingdoms really existed for 8000-ish years, The two basically switch places, Written like a History Book, and Reach is North
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-11-20 11:56:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GPMass/pseuds/GPMass
Summary: After the Long Night, Brandon the Builder stayed in the North, but what if, in a mood-swing that would forever be remembered, he decided that, truly, the neighbor had greened grass and moved South, and why not give a deserved payment to the Reach in the process? - In a world where House Stark rules the Reach and the Northerners now live in the far South of Westeros (and vice-versa, mostly), what will happen





	1. The Kings of Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Brandon the Builder invades the Reach](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/464543) by AsherStark. 



> I'm finally creating courage to post something on AO3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> But, acting as a Fangirl aside, this is a story that I started writing around early November after I read the post of AsherStark in the Miscellaneous ASOIAF thread and was inspired by it, thinking that the idea of the Starks and their vassals, so stereotypical harsh and stoic, living in the Reach was amazing. But don't think that I'm copying from him, as I firmly believe that this work and his work became two completely separate things not too much after the first paragraph.
> 
> This story will the thousands of years of House Stark (GRR Martin and his declarations that before 2000 years ago it history is not that well recorded will not be considered in any point) and if possible I'm going all the way to the time of the main story
> 
> I really wish that anyone who reads this likes it, and if anyone wants to know, this story is also posted in FF.net under the same name, the only thing differerent is that my username in the site is "Cyberbook"
> 
> Oh, and also, I'm prone to very long times withouth chapters (after I'm dealt posting the ones that I already wrote), so don't freak out if I take months to post something, and am a harsh self-critic, so don't think too strangely if you re-read the story and something has changed from the last time

After the Long Night ended, and the Wall was built, Brandon the Builder, the forefather of House Stark and the first and sole King of Winter, wasn't so happy with the southern lords of the First Men for not helping him or the North in saving all of them from the Others, so, in a move of daring and levels never heard again, he made an agreement with the Children of the Forest and the Giant, and traveled across the Neck and the Riverlands, invading the Reach and being followed by most of the northern lords and petty kings of the North, who allied themselves with him.

It was him who leaded an army of men, hardened and strong warriors, giants, whit their claves and size, and children of the forest, with their greenseers and magic, to the green lands of the Reach, intending to conquer the land to them, and being legitimized by his descent of Garth Greenhand by his son, Brandon of the Bloody Blade.

Some did not follow him, with the Marsh Magnars of House Reed deciding for staying on their homes and crannogs on the marshlands and swamps of the Neck, already green and livable enough to them, while the Skagosi simply denied accompanying Brandon for the simple reason of connection to their land, even with all its harshness, and others decided to stop in the middle of the journey, with the Raven Kings of House Blackwood simply stopping on the north of the Riverlands and deciding for settle their people and vassals on the region north of the Red Fork of the Trident and directly to the west of the domains of House Bracken, with the main part of their new realm being named after them as the Blackwood Vale.

The lords and kings of the Reach were taken by surprise and didn't even had time to put a real fight, and, by the time the King Garren II Gardener united them in a war against their invaders, Brandon and his men and allies already had set foot on controlling more than a half of the region, with many lords big and small fleeing to the sea with their people while some others decided to bent the knee and accept their new overlords, some of those who choose to stay were the Tarly of Horn Hill, the Beesbury of Honeyholt, the Costayne of Three Towers, the Merryweather of Longtable, the Fossoway of Cider Hall, the Ashford of Ashford and the Crane of Red Lake.

In the end, seeing how they couldn't put a fight in their own homeland, the Reachmen tried to give back by attacking the North directly, only to find the region almost entirely unpopulated, since Brandon and his allies, in another daring and insane move, used the magic of the Children of the Forest to move their own people of the North to the Reach with them, planning to colonize it now that many of its inhabitants had flew with their lords.

Upon the revelation that their foes lands were now almost completely devoid of people, the Gardener Kings and their colleagues in the new status of exiled royalty, decided to simply colonize the now mostly unpopulated land, settling their people in the now abandoned castles and cities while killing or absorbing the remaining locals, while in the Reach, similar things happened, with the remaining locals being killed or absorbed by the northerners, who started to settle in their new lands.

After years of moving and many changes, the Reach was finally settled by their new inhabitants, with the major kingdom being the realm of the Starks, who established their new seat in the smothering ruins of Highgarden (not that the Gardeners didn't did the same with their new seat, located were old Winterfell was) and crowned themselves Kings of Spring (a title who, with time, would be changed to Kings in the Reach, and after that Kings in the South), while their allies broke off and restored their old petty realms, the Bolton with their new home in Dreadoak, were Old Oak was located, the Dustin in their new city were Goldengrove once was, the Umber with their fortress of Bright Heart were Brightwater Keep stood, and the Rayders (the now extinct forefathers of House Ryswell) founding a personal domain within the northern parts of the Mander, naming it Breakstone Hill.

Other houses who also became important in this new Reach were House Woodfoot, who became the Kings of the Misty Islands (until they would be put to sword when the Ironborn conquered the isles five hundred years later), House Flint, who became one of the many petty kings of the Red Mountains, and House Hornwood of the Hornwood, who, while not styled themselves as kings, ruled over a good part of the northwestern coast of the Reach, even if they answered House Stark as their liege lords.

All of them were powerful, but also all of them knew that, independent of all wealth or power they gained, the Starks would always be the main and most powerful, because all the houses that now lived in the Reach owed to them the fact that now they lived and ruled over the most fertile lands in all Westeros, and even the most brutal kings would never go full frontal against the wolves of Winterfell.

And during the centuries that followed, the Starks only expanded their power over the Reach, slowly but surely annexing by the ways of war, diplomacy or marriages all the petty kings and lords that made the Reach, making them vassals of the Weirwood Throne on Winterfell and part of an realm that, by the time when the first Andals landed on the shores of the Fingers, could boldly and proudly declare itself as being the biggest in all of Westeros.

While that happened, the Gardener Kings on the North, who styled themselves as "the Kings of the Cold and of all the North", became almost extinct from time to time, fighting hard to maintain their realm, threatened bot by being on the center of the region and for the bitter resentment that many houses, who in times prior revered and respected them, held for them due to their ineptitude to defend their homeland on the Reach, creating hundreds of great and petty kingdoms and fiefdoms that broke all ties to the Oakenseat and didn't even wanted to remember their kinship by Garth Greenhand.

Of all those houses and dynasties, no other made bigger threats to their rule than three, the Hightowers, who lost their old domains and founded a new city, called of "Newtown" in an unoriginal manner, made of seastone at the mouth of the White Knife, controlling most of the trade inland and from time to time raiding Gardener lands; the Rowans, who became the rulers of a new kingdom on the large plains north of Blazewater Bay, made hilly by the many barrows dotting them, and who from time to time leaded raidings to the lands north of them on hordes of horsemen; and the Florents, who settled on the lands where in the past House Bolton ruled and became the bitterest of all enemies of House Gardener, creating an feud between the two lineages to last for eternity.

But besides the many enmities created between those new "Northmen", there was also the matters of those who already lived within the region and had decided to simply stay instead of participation of Brandon's migration south, as just like between the enemies of House Gardener, three powers still existed there, the Crannogmen, leaded by the Marsh Magnars of House Reed, who not only stayed on their swampy lands but fought both against the Rowans and the Ironborn, managing to take some of the large plains north of Moat Cailin from the Golden Kings and, more than that, becoming the overlords of Cape Kraken, even if at the cost of much fighting; the Skagosi, who even while fighting between themselves on their snowy and rocky mountains, still had time to attack and raid the coasts of the Shivering Sea, in a manner only slightly less cruel than the Ironborn on the other side of the continent; and, even more surprisingly, the Night's Watch, since with the constant pressure made by the Gardeners and other kings to control them, decided to simply defend both its north and southern borders, fending against Wildlings on the Wall and warring against the southern kings at the same time more than once to the point that its members were freed from their oaths of chastity by the Thirteenth Lord Commander, who himself married an albino woodswitch.

They would spill blood and fight hard to unite the North under their banners, but the Gardeners would never be capable of making the Marsh Magnars, the Skagosi or the Watch bent the knee to their will, even if they became known as the Kings of the North.

* * *

When the Andals came to Westeros, from two thousand to four thousand years after Brandon's Conquest, conquering the Vale and bringing its many petty kings to their knees, who became lords under the banner of House Arryn, they did not knew were to invade after, not because there was no option, but because there were many.

The Riverlands were in their doorsteps, and divided in many petty kings of their own, but many of them were also strong or allied themselves and could make a threat. The North, also, was close and easy to invade by sea, but the Gardener ruling over it, a Gwayne IV, was a strong man, who ruled in the Oakenseat still enjoying the doings of his great-great-grandfather, Garth VII. And just like the Riverlands, the Reach was close enough, even if its young king, Theon Stark, had inherited his throne from his father, Karlon II Stark, after purging the other thirty-seven children that he had with his many mistresses (having never married). The Stormlands were considered, as were the Westerlands and the Iron Islands, but the two later were in the other side of the continent and the first was ruled by a series of strong-willed kings, at the time represented by Qarlton II Durrandon and his son, Qarlton III Durrandon.

In the end, their choice was made to them.

House Gardener and its king, in a unexpected and wild act, renounced the Old Gods and, while they did not burn their godswoods, as the fear of what could happen was still one on their hearts, converted to the Seven, proving it by attacking the Neck and Skagos at the same time, only to the first force, leaded by Gwayne IV himself, be defeated by Jojen III Reed, who killed the king and annexed the plains north of the marshes to his realm, while the se-cond, a smaller host headed by his youngest and most loved son, was captured by the High Queen of Skagos, Marna I Crowl, the Ironcunt, who united her homeland against all odds and took the prince, who was only fifteen and trying to make a name for himself, to be her consort, breaking his mind and will so he wouldn't fight, and, in the end, would love her.

Because of that move, the Andals made their choice, and while they would later invade the Riverlands years later, in a series of wars so bloody that many Houses continued following the Old Gods out of spite while others continued due to exist due to timing, they first tried their luck against the Stark Kings of the Reach, at the time ruled by the young, but already bathed in blood, Theon Stark, named the "Hungry Wolf" of "Bloody Wolf" by his enemies and "Snowhand" or "the Great" by his vassals and allies.

Argos Sevenstar named by his men and allies "Seven Incarnated", invaded the Reach in the third moon of the eight year of Theon's reign, crossing its borders in the same day he married to the sole daughter of Rogar the Huntsman of House Bolton, the last Red King to rule and the one who bent the knee and united his realm with the one of House Stark after the event. He had crossed the north of the domains of House Durrandon in the process, and already had fought some battles against the Storm King Qarlton III Durrandon, who had become a ruler after his father's death.

The Andals' forces marched across the northeastern parts of the Reach, killing thousands in their way and ending the Rayder lineage before meeting Theon's forces at the banks of a small tributary of the Upper Mander, five miles north of where is Stonebridge, to their fated battle, an event that, even without the exact numbers or records, we can still record were marked by two of Argos' men to each of Theon's.

The battle itself, for all the built and the waiting, as relativelly fast, not lasting more than a quarter of a day in what could be considered the single bloodiest moment in the history of Westeros until then, with thousands being killed and killing in an bloodshed marked by brutality and ferocity never heard, with men becoming monsters as they forever stained the lands and the water around with the blood, giving the area the name of Red Fields after it while the river nearby was called the "Stain"

Ironically, Argos himself, even after leading his forces into a miserable and brutal defeat, survived the battle with almost no great injury besides the lost of his right hand, chopped of by Theon himself as he was taken prisoner with all of his seven sons to the Reachmen's camps, where they would stay for almost a week before the victorious king declared that they would accompany him down the river to Winterfell.

The entourage stopped seven times on the journey down the Mander, and each time they set foot on the banks of the river, Theon would take one of the sons of Argos, starting from the youngest one, an squire of twelve, and would impale them until only the warlord himself remained, broken after seeing the bleeding corpse of his oldest, an knight of twenty-seven.

"One for each of your gods", Theon said to him, and when his forces reached Winterfell, he hanged Argos by his own entrails over the highest branch of the Heart Tree, leaving him to suffer for seven days and seven nights before his death.

After that, Argos' body was dried and nailed in the Great Hall of Winterfell, watching while Theon ruled the realm he tried and failed to conquer.

There would be other Andal lords who tried to invade and conquer the Reach during Theon's reign, but none succeeded, and all stopped after, when an Andal killed his only son, Brandon, in battle, Theon executed a bloody revenge against them, uniting a fleet and putting his father-in-law to rule for him while he sailed to Andalos, with the corpse of Argos lashed to the prow of his flagship.

It is said the Scourging of Andalos turned the hills in a new sun, that burnt for eight days before ending, and letting only black wastelands while a hundred thousand were taken as thralls to Westeros, being put to work to dead while their wives were forced to work as nurses and handmaids and their children were turned into sex slaves. The ones who survived after a decade, having had their wills and Faith broken, were finally accepted on the Reach, and forsake their seven gods for never saving them of their suffering.

* * *

The first half of Theon's reign was not one of peace, and during the first four decades of his rule, he fought and won many wars, during which the Reach conquered the Misty Islands for decades before losing it not long after the end of his reign, took the Arbor from the Ironborn, adding the island to the domains of House Greystark of the Hightower, and made House Dayne of Starfall a vassal of the Starks, when Ferron II Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and last King of the Torentine, bent the knee.

War would also be brought directly to the Iron Islands, when Theon sailed North on the Sunset Sea in what would be called the "Rape of Great Wyk" (or "the worst middle-age crisis I ever saw" by his grandson, Rickard the Galant), when many tough the Sun had rose in the West and the Ironborn became so frightened that would be another two hundred years before one of their ships raided the coast of the Reach, even while controlling the mouth of the Mander.

The second half, in other hand, was one of peace, and he ruled more than any other king of Westeros with completely recorded dates, with him using the Weirwood Throne as his seat for ninety-four consecutive years, dying at the age of one-hundred and six and being succeeded by his great-great-great grandson, Beron II Stark, who ruled for a third of a century but was considered not one to remember.

In his memory, no other King in the Reach or in the South would name himself Theon, even if their enemies would pay homage with six Hoare Kings named after him, and the Bloody Wolf is still the sole one to bear the name, who was responsible for turning the words of House Stark from a simple warning about the cold and hard Winter and became instead the memory of the chill and dread brought by House Stark to its enemies.

The next millennia saw a remarkable neutrality by House Stark, with their biggest wars being fought to defend themselves from the Petty Kings of Dorne, the Storm Kings, the Kings of the Iron Islands and the Kings of the Rock, adding from time to time some lands to their domains, including half of the Dornish Marshes vassal to Storm's End. Rodrik III Stark, descendent of Theon in nine or ten generations, would also bring the Misty Islands, who he renamed Shield Islands, to the realm, when he won a wrestling match against the Ironborn after the death of Loron Greyjoy, who had taken the island during his father's reign after somehow taking the throne of House Hoare for a total of seventy years, being the sole High King of the Iron Islands before they regained their power.

The Stark also fought against their vassals sometimes, even if most of the rebellions were ended by the ways of treaties and marriages, besides the common taking of hostages, but the last great one to happen, incomparable to the time-to-time provocations of House Flint or House Dustin, was the Greystark Rebellion…


	2. The Greystark Rebellion and the Reigns that followed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark's united the Reach under their banner, and ruled as kings for millennia, a Rebellion from their own family nearly ended that reign

During the reign of Edric IV Stark, known as the “Snowbeard” by his subjects, the rule of House Stark reached its lowest point, and, for the first time in its thousands of years of history, it reached the brink of total annihilation, a thousand and two hundred years before the Conquest.  
A vain and mostly foolish king, even if he was known for being gallant and vigorous in his youth, he became King in the Reach at the age of three when his father, King Rodrik IX Oakenshield, suffered a stroke in his sleep, and never was too interested in ruling over his house’s domains, surrounding himself with fools and flatterers and thinking more about feasts and whoring than about ruling.  
During his eighty-five years of reign, he only leaved Highgarden six times, preferring the halls and gardens of his capitol than the strongholds of his vassals, and under his rule the Reach suffered.  
Since he didn’t wanted to rule, his vassals started to fend for themselves, many times using their personal armies to fight one-another, and while it happened, the Reach loosed lands in all sides, with the Yronwoods and Fowlers grabbing swats of land in the Red Mountains, only being pushed back by the local lords, the Storm Kings recovering their lands in the Dornish Marches, and the Kings in the Rock engulfing almost all lands north of the Dreadoak, laying siege to the castle for three and a half years and almost starving House Bolton out before being forced to stop after an invasion of the Ironborn in their northern coast.  
But it was only when Snowbeard was already crippled and senile of old age that all reached its breaking point.

House Greystark of the Hightower was one of the many branches of House Stark, but it was not only a simple branch, not, it was the oldest after the main, having been founded by one of the grandsons of Brandon the Builder, Torrhen the Grey Wolf, who became known for having been born not with dark hair, but whit curls as grey as a stormy sky.  
When he conquered the Reach, Brandon gave to Torrhen the old domains of House Hightower, who renamed their capital, the City of Hightown (who would later be known as “Oldtown” if it continued), White Harbor, in reference to white stones that made most of the buildings in the city, while he took the Hightower as his seat.  
During the centuries and millenniums that followed, House Greystark only grew in power and status in the Reach, first due to their control over the biggest city in Westeros, being one of the richest houses in the Reach, as also the owners of its biggest merchant fleet, and, later, due to their control over the Island of the Arbor, given by Theon Stark after he took it from the Ironborn.  
The members of House Greystark were known, for much of their history, for their loyalty to their forefathers, House Stark, and no other lord received more trust and confidence than the Lord Greystark from Hightower, their words were “Blood, Thicker the Water”, but, nonetheless, the time were their power flew over their heads came, during the reign of the Snowbeard.  
Husband of a Greystark, the old king was never more foolish than with his cousins, giving more and more presents and rights to them during his reign, with the house growing in power and wealth at the pace of days and months were before had taken decades or centuries to reach. And, in the end, a man named Beron Greystark, known as “the Last” by the bards and maesters, became the Lord of the Hightower.  
Son of his predecessor with one of the granddaughters of Snowbeard, Beron became head of his house when he was only twenty-five, after his father died hunting a boar, and he was as ambitious as he was rich, saying:  
“Why can’t I be the King? Me that am much wiser and powerful than the Old Fool of Highgarden”  
Drunk by the power put on his name, he planned and waited, bidding his time with care, forging swords and building ships to fight the war that he believed would give to House Greystark their rightful place as the rulers of the Reach.  
And in the late years of the 85th year of the reign of Edric Snowbeard, when the old king suffered a stroke from which he would finally die, he rose his armies and called his bannermen to take his bid for the Weirwood Throne, leading his forces in the direction of Winterfell.

Besides Beron the Last, there was only one other descendant of Edric Snowbeard still alive by the time he died, a twenty-two years old man named Brandon.  
Called Icy-Eyes by the people, he was the first children and only boy of the heir of the old king, his grandson Rickard, and, unlike his great-grandfather, he was known as being the representation in flesh and blood of the family’s surname, stark and having eyes said to be “soulless and cold like the Long Night”, showing his cold-hearted nature.  
Born with unsettling blue eyes and a pale-blonde hair, he was considered by most of the Reach’s nobility the true heir of the Weirwood Throne, different from bot his father and grandfather, who were known for being similar to Edric bot in appearance and in personality, being eager to rule and enraged every time his relatives showed themselves unfit for the task.  
So, when he heard of the death of his great-grandfather and the treasonous act of his cousin, Brandon, now styling himself as Brandon, King in the Reach, Fifty Second of his Name, called all the lords, big and small, to unite under his cause, and when most of them did, with the exception of the old Lord of Dreadoak, who only sent one men, his son an heir.  
He went to war.

The conflict lasted three years, being named later “Greystark Rebellion”, but was one marked by brutality, with more than fifty thousand men dying in battle, and with Brandon slaying Lord Beesbury when he used his own men as a bait to let his liege lord escape from Winterfell, were he had crowned himself King less than a moon before.  
Battles were fought bot in land as in sea, whit the loyalist fleet laying siege to the Arbor and conquering it while the Shield Islands were raided by the Ironborn, who took their chance seeing the chaos in the Reach. The neighboring kings and lords also took their prizes on the conflict, and took even bigger swats of land, with the King of the Rock, Leon III Lannister, controlling over all the lands north of the Shield Islands and West of the Golden Branch before being pushed back.  
When the forces of Beron were defeated, at last only his seat remained, and White Harbor was put under a siege, a bloody and ungrateful battle of attrition that lasted seven moons and a half before ending.  
“This day will be the last, and no one will dare to defy our rule again”, said Brandon, moments before his forces stormed the gates of the city.  
The Sacking of White Harbor lasted a whole day and night after that, with the city burning like a pyre while it was sacked by the loyalist army. White stone became red, and black after that, when the blood tainted it and burned to ashes. Men pillaged, killed and raped the smallfolk with a fury never seen.  
And Brandon never let the ice in his eyes die that day, watching all with a heartless sight while screams were heard.

House Greystark died that day, for Brandon followed his promise and ensured that no one would ever dare defy the rule of House Stark again.  
All members of the family, from the main branch to the farthest and smallest of the cousins, were brought to him, many screaming or pleading mercy, but their suffering fell in deaf ears, for Icy-Eyes would not be merciful.  
Beron was forced to watch as every men and women over the age of fourteen was killed, their impaled bodies left to burn as gruesome torches; after that, the children of the cadet branches were tied by the hands and given to the soldiers, be them boy or girls, and used as they saw fit, after that, the ones that still lived had their throats slit.  
“an act of mercy”, Brandon said.  
And, in the end, only Beron and his four sons, as he had no daughters, still lived, and the Last was again forced to watch, having his eyelids cut to guarantee, while the three oldest were tied to stakes and burnt alive, and, he himself was devoured by Brandon’s direwolf.  
Only the youngest son of Beron, a boy of thirteen, was let live, if only because of some twisted kind of mercy, and he was stripped of all his titles and branded with hot iron as a traitor to all see, before being taken as a hostage to Dreadoak, were he would swear his vassalage to House Bolton and be given a small keep in the coast.  
“Never Again”, would be the words of House Last, as the name Greystark was also stripped of him, and never again they would betray House Stark, but never they would be forgiven, as to this day any dowry give to them will be smaller, and any dowry given by them will be higher than any other house, and their taxes will still be bigger than any house of same status as them.  
As for White Harbor, it was added to the personal domains of House Stark, who would never give the lordship of the city to any house, preferring to have Lord Stewards chosen by the Lord of Winterfell, while the Arbor would be given to House Manderly, a house of the North who had been recently exiled from their lands by the King Perceon III Gardener, who gave the right of their domains to Lord Lorimar Peake.  
For that, House Manderly would always be loyal to the Kings in the Reach, and never a Manderly would direct his sword or arrow to a member of House Stark.

Although Brandon Icy-Eyes would rule for two thirds of a century, and annexed all lands lost by the Reach during the reign of his great-grandfather, slaying two Kings of the Rock, three Storm Kings and more than ten Dornish Kings in the process, as also rule over his lands with an iron fist while being loved by his people at the same time, his reign is considerably put aside by the events mattering his daughter ‘s life.

Brandon only married one time, in an arranged marriage with Amerei the Golden, the daughter of one of the Kings of the Rock who he killed, and by the time he was already a man hardened by old age, with his blond hair now truly white and his skin more wrinkled than crumpled paper, and from this marriage, who ended with the death of his wife in childbed, he had only a daughter, Lyanna, who was born with the traditional Stark hair and the blue unnerving eyes of her father.  
A protective father as much as a cunning ruler, Brandon never married again, and from birth he prepared his daughter to be his successor, training her both in the ways of the sword and on the ways of politics and administration, knowing her rule would not be one of easiness.  
Princess Lyanna became, with time, known as “the Beauty”, due to her good looks, but no men could gain her hand in marriage, as she always declared, “fight me, if I yield, we shall be married. If you yield, you shall promise be always loyal but I will not be your wife”, a hundred men tried, and a hundred men failed, in their try, giving more power to the princess, as they were heirs and lords, instead of wives.  
Although she became known for loving the fire of battle, having commanded a war fleet against the ironborn and slaying in battle the King Mortag I “the One Killed by a Lady” Hoare, who had said would take her as his saltwife, Lyanna never as the happiest or the most animated of the persons, as she always was utterly bored and disinterest with the courtly life of Winterfell or the Reach  
Because of that, she traveled across the Known World, and, in a uniquely long summer, she sailed North in the Sunset Sea, wanting to find some adventure fighting Wildlings in the Lands Beyond the Wall, were a woman would be seen as equal and would she would not have an advantage.

It was there that she finally met the person who would later become her lover, when, in one of her raids inland, she met the wildling bard Bael, a man with deep grey eyes and a bright red hair that tried to steal her as his bride and had a dream of uniting the wildling tribes, only to be knocked unconscious by a swing of her mace and taken prisoner to her ship.  
A funny and light-hearted man, Bael rapidly make himself a part of the day-to-day life of the ship and Lyanna, many times singing to animate the crew and sharing with its princess and captain contests in the matter of mind and even drinking, being said to never had won against her even after a thousand tries.  
With time, the two created a bond and a strong friendship, that became flirting with the passing of months and, in the end, the two fell head-over-heels in love for each other, and, when the time came, married under a carved weirwood tree, consuming their union there under the eyes of the Old Gods.  
The two stayed two years together, while Icy-Eyes stayed in the Reach strangely fond of his daughter’s relationship, and when time came to Lyanna came back to the Reach, leaving Bael to his declared ambition in becoming the King-Beyond-the-Wall, she sailed with a baby in her lap, a boy named Brandon, with the dark hair of his mother and one eye in honor of each parent, a trait still retained in House Stark to this day.  
Sadly, their relationship would not be one ended in happiness and joy, for Bael did became the King-Beyond-the-Wall, and one day invaded the North, at the time ruled by the King Gwayne VI Gardner, known as “the Fool”, who slay him in battle and sent his dried head to Winterfell.  
Seeing this, the now aged Lyanna broke on despair, killing herself by the way of jumping from the tallest tower in the castle, and her son, now King Brandon Stark, Fifty Third of His Name, united the greatest army to the time, seventy thousand men, and sailed to the North, passing by in the Iron Islands to a little time of pillaging and to guarantee their neutrality, and invaded the North by the Rills, killing thousands and setting ablaze Highgarden, chopping into pieces the Oakenseat of House Gardener before coming back to the Reach, accompanied by forty thousand wildling men, woman and children that followed his father South of the Wall and now settled some areas of the Red Mountains, becoming a part of the Mountain Clans of the Reach.  
The North would take centuries to recover the heavy blow they received, while in the Reach Brandon received the title “Avenger”, sitting back in his throne and again putting his domains in a state of neutrality.  
Before dying, however, he made a strange, if correct, declaration to his descendants, who waited at his side, “Wait!”, he said, half made of age but with a fire in his eyes, “Wait for the Sun that comes from East! Born of the water of the Great River with ten thousand flares! Wait and thrive when it comes! As the Wolf shall finally rule over the Sands!”


	3. The Later Kings in the Reach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Greystark Rebellion and the reign of the "Avenger", some centuries would still come to his dying words to become true, this chapter is those centuries

At first, none could understand the worlds of Brandon the Avenger, believing them as simply mad ramblings of an old and senile man for the first century and a half after his death, while the kings that ruled during that time became known as petty or simply as a little off, being more incapable, cruel or simply more stupid than many of those who came before them on the Weirwood Throne.  
Later on time, they became known as the Failure Kings.

Benjen the Sixth, called the Good probably due to being the best in comparison to those who preceded him, was both the first and most capable of the five, ruling for almost five decades after the death of his grandfather, and while he did not bring disgrace or ruin to the Reach, he couldn’t focus on one thing and go with it, and any project always ended with him changing his mind.  
He also suffered from some sort of mental illness, for he feverously rejected the use of any clothing, saying that they fell like a thousand cockroaches walking over his skin, and hated sleeping on a bed, preferring to rest with the direwolves on the kennels of Winterfell, sometime howling with them to the full moon, because of that some called him “Wolf King”.  
His successor was Edwyle, Eight of His Name, his grand-nephew, who inherited the throne because his uncle never married or had bastards that he could legitimize, and the man that even before his rise to power was already called “the Petty” became King in the Reach.  
Ruling for over three decades from the age of forty-two to the age of seventy-three, he was, as his nickname inclines, incredibly petty and capable of holding grudges, besides his love for anything that shone, and his rule was one of tyranny and cruelty, for he used his power and status to take lands and wealth from nobles who he decided had wronged him, while the taxes during his reign only not rose more from the normality because he blocked off the Sunset Sea from anyone trying to cross the White Straits, since the tariffs to any ship that tried to cross the Two Towers were so astonishingly high that half of the ships simply went back and sold their products on the Stormlands, Vale and Dorne, since the rich ports of the Westerlands or even of the Iron Islands were cut off from their reach.  
Unlike his uncle, Edwyle the Petty did marry during his life, having four wives but having children only with the last of them, Selyse of House Manderly, known by some as the “Dread” due to having grown in the halls of her uncle, Lord Bolton, and following the old traditions of said house, being said to have a purse made of the flayed face of a man.  
The children of those two, a couple of boys, became known for being the first a lazy and disinterested ruler and the second an utter monster.

Harrion the Third, known as the “Lazy”, ruled as King in the Reach from the age of eleven until the age of forty-nine, and his reign was all things besides fondly remembered, for he was disinterested in almost everything, always looking gloomy or tired, and had some sort of problem that made him forget things easily, with even the act of eating being forgotten from time to time, making him thin and bony.  
Inheriting a land in chaos, since his father had died suddenly of an exploded vein on his head when his sons were only eleven, he did almost nothing to change it, and barely acted when, shortly after his coronation, an unexpected flooding of the Mander happened, and half of the reach was drowned in water, killing hundreds of thousands and half of the crops that year, while the Winter that came on the following caused hunger and mass death across the land.  
The following decades of his rule, while ones of peace, since while being incompetent on ruling their lands, the Failure Kings still had an army strong enough to put fear on their neighbors, were not ones of prosperity, being mostly dull when not terrible, whit the most interesting thing being Harrion’s Queen, Lelia Hoare, also known as the Pirate Queen by some, for she had married the lazy king not for alliances or interests and yes for love, and was not a woman like those of her time.  
Daughter of Harmund Hoare, known by his people as the “Monster” and by the people of the continent as the “Handsome”, she had escaped the same faith of her father and grandmother by jumping off the windows of her tower on House Hoare’s castle in Orkmont, swimming all her way across the sea to Harlaw and there stealing a fisherman’s boat, which she used to sail to the Summer Sea and become a pirate, sailing for a decade before she met Harrion on a travel to White Harbor, settling down and becoming the heart of the Reach.  
The two had a son, but both hated him with more force than anything in the world, and when he died, the two barely cried, before having to deal with the fact that he had only a daughter, Meera, who as forced to marry her grand-uncle, Benjen Stark.  
And, when Harrion died whit his wife of some kind of pox, this marriage brought to the Reach suffering and terror not seen since then, for Benjen the Seventh, who would be known as the “Bloody King”, the “Cruel” or simply the “Bad”, and be the last Benjen to seat on the Weirwood Throne, was a man of many desires and insanities, and his reign showed it.  
He ruled for a grand total of eight years, of which seven were covered by rain, with the Mander again rising against its borders while Horn Hill and other castles close to the Red Mountains were damaged by landslides and the seat of House Crane was surrounded by the waters of the Red Lake for so much time that the castle is still an island to this day.  
And while his vassals and subjects suffered, he roamed around the lands of the Reach with a personal army, always traveling during night and killing and torturing freely peasants and even some smaller noble houses, that didn’t become extinct by the sole reason that the mad king was terrifyingly obsessed with the prolongation of bloodlines, and while his men raped the children and women of those houses, they did not kill them, even if Stonebridge was sacked and still hadn’t recovered after a hundred years of their attack by Benjen.  
In the end, of course, the madness and cruelty did have to end, and his son, who at the time was still only fourteen-years-old, became King in the Reach when a prostitute (as the late King, after killing his subjects, decided to bring destruction to the Riverlands) strangulated him with her hair braids in Stony Sept.  
The newly crowned king, Brandon the Fifty-Fourth, was the last and the less involved of the Failure Kings, and while, like his predecessors, was somewhat strange to a degree, his rule was one of recovery to the Reach, for he knew that he wasn’t capable of ruling, not having the dedication or intelligence to that, and had many councilors and ministers from the lowest to the highest grounds of society to help him rule, while his mother, Meera Stark, served as his Royal Regent until death.  
In the end, he barely had to rule, only having to oversee the government from time to time and trusting his advisor and ministers, and while that happened, he could also have a life outside of the rule, as the King was known in the courts to be more of a “Queen”, and had dressed as a woman since he was a child, dancing in a dress and with a wig even while in court and sleeping more with men than with women.  
But, even with all his oddities, Brandon the Queen did the best that the Reach could ask of him, and had a son, not by marriage, as everyone knew he would prefer to be fed to a direwolf than to marry, but with a prostitute of Wintertown, a boy who was legitimized at the age of seven and was so loved by even the nobles that could inherit the throne after him that no person declared him unfit or not deserving to rule, and when his father died, Cregan the Black became King in the Reach.

Born from a one night stand of his father and a woman from one of the smaller brothels of Wintertown, the Laughing Rose, Cregan the Black lived for the first seven years of his life as somewhat of a street urchin, pickpocketing and stealing while his mother worked on the streets as prostitute, many times gaining only enough to keep a roof over their heads and a sheet over them during the colder nights, what would have continued if not for a stroke of luck, as for, during the Harvest Festival that each year took Wintertown with festivities, he tried and failed to pickpocket his own father, who was passing by vested on a dress and kissing almost every man on the crowd.  
Sadly (or luckily), the pickpocketing failed, and Cregan was grabbed by his arm by the disguised king, who, upon seeing his face, immediately recognized him as his son, for are times when a father can identify his children without never having met them before, and embraced him on a strong and furious hug, taking the boy, who was not understanding any of what happened, to Winterfell.  
Upon returning to the castle, not only Brandon the Queen legitimized him as his son and took Cregan and his mother to live in Winterfell, but made the until now bastard the heir to the Weirwood Throne and the crown, a move not only unexpected, but that outraged some of the lords, who due to kinship were possible heirs to Winterfell if Brandon’s line ended without a legitimate heir.  
But that was not a matter of importance to the Queen, who let his many advisors and even his mother deal with the backlash and fend back any treat fiercely, while he focused on creating the child that until then he had never known was his, preparing him to become a king that the Reach would remember fondly and giving him a firmer ground to start.  
Because of that newfound dedication, Cregan grew surrounded not only by the best professors and tutors, going from maesters to wisemen from lands as far as Yi Ti and Asshai to even some merchants and military leaders from Valyria, so he could train and grown his mind and knowledge, but also by the heirs of the great and minor lords of the Reach, so when the time to become King come, he would have a strong support.  
Cregan himself grew out of the years of his childhood, becoming sly and ambitious, but also cautious enough to known how to wait, and the time with the heirs of other houses did not to prejudice him, who planned and manipulated and made friends with almost every single one of them in one way or another.  
He didn’t play the Game, as some may say, no, he controlled the game, and every player simply walked on the tip of his hands. 

Cregan the Black became King in the Reach at the age of twenty-four and would rule until the age of sixty-one, and while some of the older generation still held some prejudices, no noble, big or small, made a noise against him on the Weirwood Throne, whit the young king starting his reign strong and powerful, a thing that wouldn’t slip away from him with the passing of years.  
A pragmatic and resourceful man, Cregan initiated his reign, as many kings do, with his marriage, wedding the daughter of Lord Beesbury of Honeyholt, a rich vassal that while not having the largest or most fertile lands, was still a major player on the realm, being kin to the most powerful houses of the Reach and having a strong Stark blood running on him (that some say even showed on him by the way of warging on a bee hive).  
Cregan also created new laws right on the start, being supportive of the children born out of wedlock and from sex workers, he decreed that any child born a bastard, be it of noble or a commoner, should be created by his father’s family, and that if a parent could not be found, the child should be taken by the local lord or lady, who should give them a roof and a work when they came of age, he also prohibited the beating or mutilating of women, with a man being prohibited of hurting his wife or any woman by any other way tan a slap, and that should he do any worse, the victim had the permission to give it back. Some say that it was due to his infancy that those laws were created but Cregan, when asked, only said:  
“Why the King does and why the King does not isn’t important. The important is that those who heard obey”  
His reign continued to see acts on a similar not across the Reach, since Cregan, even while living with the nobility for decades, still tough about those of the smallfolk, and while he wouldn’t give equal rights between all his subjects (as they seemed outrageous even to him), he would end serfdom on the Reach on the tenth year of his reign, an act that still is only seen on the Reach.  
It was also after the decree freeing all serfs that he showed his true colors, and was called “the Black” for that, for when his decree was signed and showed to the nobility, some of them were outraged, and while other supported Cregan, who was still friends with most of the great houses of the Reach, many shouted against him, calling his rule illegitimate and that he was mocking the rights that belonged to them for millennia, and Cregan, who always presented himself as an easy-going and friendly man, showed for the first time the cold and stern man that he truly was inside, and who he would show himself to be for the second half of his reign.  
“You will not speak in that way against me ever again, for remember, I am the King, I am not a simpleton fool that you can mock and simply say that is an illegitimate ruler because he didn’t agree with you. I do not expect you to agree with me, for I know that a man is an animal moved by sin and by want, but you will respect me, and you will obey me. Do not dare to do again what you all tried this day, do not disrespect me ever again, and don’t even think about defying me and rebelling, for I will remember what happened today, and I will forgive any of you who tried to defy me on this day, this is your last chance to show that you all are not simple-minded fools that can’t see your betters, for if you try again to disobey me in any kind or form, your Houses will end, and your Seats and Strongholds will fall, for the Winter Is Coming to those who dare against me, and the Autumn is already upon”  
No noble ever again said anything against Cregan the Black.

But with all his doings on his own lands and domains, Cregan the Black is better known for what he did on the matters of foreign policy, since, unlike his predecessors, who already were not the brightest of their age, he took some interest about the last words of his ancestor, Brandon the Avenger, and, when his dark-brown hair was already turning grey, he finally understood what he had said, what had to be done so said prophecy was not only made true, but also made more easy.  
Although he was still powerful and feared, there had already some years that the King had become disinterested on the matters of ruling, and started to give powers to his son and heir, Jojen, while he started to focus more on the matters of trade and the Dornish, but even then, it was mostly thinking on ways to conquer the lands of western Dorne, or finally make the Yronwood or the Fowler stop their timely invasions of the Reach.  
So, when he out of nowhere decided to take a ship on White Harbor and set sail to the domains of a minor house of Eastern Dorne, who until then had as its major doing its own foundation, some of the nobles of the Reach (including his own son) tough that maybe the years had finally reached him and Cregan had finally become senile, but still, he was largely trusted and even those who worried that he had lost his mind still decided to not openly say anything. And what followed was, to put mildly, unexpected.  
(LOOK OUT! My first try at writing, even if really small, a scene on this fic)  
Cregan the Black set foot on the docs around the Sandship, the ugly and strange keep of House Martell, in a thunderous afternoon, as if the skies knew what would happen and not only showed some strange form of approval, looking with a blank face as he was greeted by the young, but ambitious, Lossar Martell, a cunning man that had become lord just some moons beforehand.  
“Welcome to my petty and lowly seat, oh great King in the Reach, the highest visitor to ever touch this lands, lets share salt and b-“  
“Cut with the pleasantries, Martell, if I wanted to be adulated I would have stayed in Winterfell, at least there the weather isn’t a natural oven”, the aged King interrupted, while the two slowly rode to the keep.  
“Of course, of course, what brings your Grace here, so far from your realm? But if the skies say something, probably is good, rain isn’t a common occurrence in this lands”  
“Business”  
“What kind of business, you say?”  
“The kind that if done right will make your house the most powerful in Dorne… and mine the most powerful in Westeros”  
“Tell me more about it”, Lossar said, while the two entered his solar, only to walk out on the following morning.  
(And here ends this attempt at writing a scene)  
What the two talked or did inside the lord’s solar during that night, since even the servants and guards were prohibited from even passing by, under the threat of execution (not that many interesting theories didn’t appeared), but when the two men walked out of it, a secret deal had been struck between them, and House Martell became the secret vassal of the Reach, only waiting for their time of reveal.

Cregan died only two years after his encounter with Lossar Martell (who would live to see his ninety-nine nameday before passing) when his stomach exploded and the loss of blood took his life, and was succeeded by his son, Jojen, the Eight, that had already ruled the Reach one way or another for almost a decade before oficially becoming King.  
An uninteresting and unimaginative man, even if a fair and just ruler, he was not a ruler on the types of his father, and his reign marked the mood for the following five hundred years or so, during which most of the rulers of the Reach were not the most interesting or memorable, and while the Reach prospered in wealth and power, only some Kings could be truly called as “good” or “impressive”, or at least were memorable due to being unique in their own strange way, or had a children or two that would enter to history.  
The first of said kings that deserved to be remembered was Jojen’s grandson, Edderion the Third, who during his lifetime received the mocking name of “Bridegroom”, since after an early elopement with a cousin of his, who denied his love, he passed the next twenty years of his life trying to marry, first to his noblewomen, second to foreigners and, at last, ended up marrying a woodswitch named Lisa.  
Following him was Edric the Fifth, who became King at the age of fifty-two and only ruled for a total of nine months before dying, but during that small amount of time he received the fitting nickname of “Lumberjack”, since at each month of his reign he chopped off the head of an Ironwood King, who tried and failed to invade the Reach in a swift succession.  
Artos the Ninth, while not nearly as memorable as his father, became infamous for his only and beloved daughter, Sansa, a strong-willed and determined girl that during her twenty-five years of live became known as “the Lover” in the Reach, being the mistress of half the lords in the realm for years, before dying of grief for the death of a hedge knight that she had fell head-over-heels in love.  
Artos great-grandson, Brandon the Fifty-Seventh, became the next on the line, being known trough history as “Stonejaw” or “the Maester”, he was the fifth and youngest son of his father by his third marriage, and being half made since childhood (having the strange obsession of eating rocks), was let travel to the Citadel under a disguise to become a Maester, but while he would without a doubt collect as much knowledge as any other of the order, he never had a single link on his chain, and when his brothers killed each other, he inherited the Weirwood Throne. His reign was considered a bright one for the time, since he used what he had learned on the Citadel to better the Reach, creating irrigation systems in the lands of House Dayne and starting the use of terraces to cultivate crops in the Red Mountains.  
His son, strangely also named Brandon, went a step further, and while his father had used the knowledge of the Citadel to bring wealth to the Reach, he knew only what he learned on his time in the order, while Brandon the Fifty-Eight sent on purpose almost a hundred people to become novices on the Citadel, making them learn what they could and, after that, return to the Reach, were they would write their knowledge down in a large library that he built on White Harbor, that whit time would only grew and grew in size, for that, he became known as “the Librarian”.  
Brandon own son would also be remembered for something, deciding that simply the books weren’t enough, and creating basically his own version of the Citadel on the Reach, a relatively smaller order more focused on knowledge than in supporting any noble family or any lord, having as their own responsibility find ways to better the Reach in some way, and record to history of the region without the bias that normally came from other regions, that due to a strong resentment still called the people of the Reach “barbarians”.  
Tormund the Sixth, who ruled only a century before Nymeria’s Thousand Ships, was a ruthless and cruel man, even if his people loved him madly, and during his reign he became known as “the Pink” in Westeros, not due to using the colors of his mother’s house’s banner, but because he was an albino, and during his reign he fought more than eight wars against all his neighbors and even waged war against the North once more for the sake of it, and the blood covered him so much that his hair became pink.  
His son, Axel the Third, became known as Axel Honeyblood both because he was so sweet in his demeanor and actions and because of his love for any kind of sweets, so fanatically obsessed with them that he even created some, and he ate so much sugar that, when cut, his blood would not run like water, and instead would fall slowly like honey.  
Axel’s third son, Eddard, never became King, after all, he had two older brothers, but is also remembered for something, having during his live traveled north to the High Kingdom of Skagos, were he fell madly in love with its High Queen, Terra the Third of House Crowl, marrying her and bringing the advancements of the Reach to Skagos with the marriage, that made the small snowy nation a powerhouse in the extreme north of Westeros, even investing in expansionism on the Lands Beyond the Wall.  
The last of those memorable kings was, ironically, also the last King in the Reach proper, Thormund the Seventh, called the “Sandwolf” by his people, because it was during his reign, only two years after the birth of his only son and heir with a girl of House Dayne, that Brandon the Avenger’s Prophecy became true, for House Martell sent a raven telling of a Rhoynar Princess and her ships and her warrior people landing on the shores of their lands.  
The time had finally come to the Conquest of Dorne.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it, did you not, please comment and send me kudos if you did, please


End file.
